


Up (at) yours

by marginaliana



Category: Vantablack pigment feud RPF
Genre: Gen, Heist, New York City, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-11
Updated: 2018-11-11
Packaged: 2019-08-22 04:09:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16590581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marginaliana/pseuds/marginaliana
Summary: With one instagram picture, Kapoor has taken their feud to a whole new level. Stuart has a great idea on how to fight back.





	Up (at) yours

**Author's Note:**

  * For [greenet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenet/gifts).



  
[image: an entry from Anish Kapoor's instagram showing his middle finger dipped into a small can of the Pinkest Pink pigment. The post is captioned "Up yours #pink"]

"Right," Stuart declared. "That's it."

"Mmm?" said Erika. She set down the paint thinner and went to look over his shoulder at the laptop. "Oh. That."

"You don't understand," Stuart said. "He's taken this to a new level. An _unacceptable_ level."

"Thought you wanted to ramp things up," Erika said. "Keep people from getting bored with your _feud_."

"Sure, but now it looks like he's gotten one over on me."

"So fight back," she said. "You could, I don't know, say that it's inappropriate if he wants to encourage young artists." Stuart made a face at Kapoor's attitude towards young artists; Erika didn't disagree, but she pushed on. "Or a legal threat because of the contract? We could mock up a cease and desist letter." She had only the vaguest idea of what that was – being an artist's assistant and not a lawyer – but surely there would be examples online.

Stuart opened his mouth and then closed it again. He turned his head to look out the windows of the studio to the jagged surfaces of New York roofs. "Fight back," he said, voice eerily soft. "Yes." 

Erika felt a shiver of apprehension. "How?" she asked, but Stuart wouldn't answer.

 

For a few days, he seemed to forget all about the tweet. Perhaps he was quieter than usual, more introspective, but Erika chalked that up to 'moody artist' and let herself relax. She didn't even think much of it when he sent her to the county clerk's office for copies of some building plans. It was the sort of material he'd use – maybe he had an architecture theme in mind, something about New York's alien landscape. 

The plans were taped up on the wall across from the desk, untouched over one night and then another. But the next morning when Erika arrived they were marked up with symbols, arrows, circles, a few punctuation marks. There was a little path of dashes and dots, like Morse code; she resolved to look up the meaning, but Stuart came in just then and she turned away from it, not wanting to be caught interrogating his work like a schoolgirl.

The day was quiet, Stuart painting intensely and without speaking. It wasn't until dusk was dripping like paint down over the studio window that he broke the silence. 

"Say, Erika," he said, almost casually, "I don't suppose you happen to own a grappling hook."

 

"Should've gone to med school," Erika moaned, though she was careful to keep the words quiet as they climbed hand-over-hand up one of the drainpipes to Kapoor's rooftop garden. "I would've vomited on the corpses and I'm guessing professors hate that, but probably corpse vomiting would have been an improvement over breaking and entering."

"Shhhh," said Stuart, his voice barely carrying down from where he was climbing above her. 

"Maybe business school," Erika murmured again, but after that she shut up. They did have a cover story – "performance art" was all-purpose when it came to doing stupid shit – but she didn't want to use it, mainly because her family _had_ favored med school, and if she got arrested she'd never hear the end of it.

They climbed another ten meters before stopping; Stuart didn't give her any warning and so she rammed the top of her head into the heels of his shoes, only just managing to hold on and keep herself from groaning.

"Careful," Stuart snapped, still in a whisper. Erika bit her tongue on a reply, which just as well because he followed it with, "We've reached the edge of the deck. Pass up one of the pitons."

 

The french doors from the garden into the apartment had no alarms; they weren't even locked. That worried her. At least the place was empty, or appeared so. Stuart had been assured that Kapoor was out of town and Kapoor's twitter appeared to bear that out. Erika tried to tell herself that there couldn't be anyone else here. Housekeeper? It was midnight. Cat-sitter? There were no cats. Gardener? Still midnight. Building guard? Okay, that was actually a possibility. _Don't think about it,_ she told herself firmly, and then nearly jumped out of her skin when Stuart spoke from the nearby darkness.

"You check the studio," he said. 

_And you'll do what?_ she thought, but didn't say it, just groped her way through the living room.

It probably wasn't even here, that little can of powdered pigment. If Kapoor had any sense he'd have kept it at his studio-lab, made extravagant use of it just to be a dick. Or maybe he wouldn't want to admit that it was worth using. God knew how his mind worked. After all, he'd been willing to turn Stuart's one-sided publicity stunt into a proper feud. Baffling.

Still, the pigment wouldn't be _here_ … Would it?

 

Erika didn't dare turn on the lights, so she had to search Kapoor's home studio using only the light of the half moon and her miniature flashlight. She'd expected something like Stuart's, shelves and drawers and cardboard boxes filled with every sort of art supply one could think of and then some unorthodox junk as well. But Kapoor did less hands-on work and he was far more organized, so she was a third of the way through the place when she heard Stuart's footsteps. 

At least, she _thought_ they were his footsteps. Still, she clicked off the flashlight.

"Having much success searching in the dark?" Stuart drawled. His tone was much lighter than when they'd come in.

"I was appreciating the blackest black," said Erika. "So where was the pink?"

"His awards cabinet. Top shelf." The eyeroll was obvious in his voice.

"How long do you think it will take him to notice it's gone?"

"Oh, I think he'll pick it up quickly," said Stuart.

"What, did you leave him a note?" There was silence. Erika sighed. "Of course you left him a note." 

"Fighting back isn't much good if he doesn't know it."

Annoyingly, she knew he was right.

 

Climbing down was more nerve-wracking than climbing up, and then there was all the rest: working their way back across the rooftops, navigating the gaps by moonlight alone; finding the right building; going quietly up the metal fire escape to the right window where Stuart's cousin's girlfriend's brother let them in; changing back into party clothes; leaving as if they'd had a nice evening of drinks, as if Erika's purse contained only a wallet and keys and phone, maybe a spare tampon – and not pitons and a pair of flashlights and a lockpick that Stuart apparently knew how to use.

They made it, even though the cab ride back across the city left her jittering. Turning on the bright studio lights was a relief. Stuart set the pigment can down on his easel, alongside a piece of paper covered in scrawled writing, and reached for the camera.

"My art school recommendation letter," Erika reminded him. That had been the deal. "It had better be—"

"Unreservedly positive," Stuart promised absently. "Enthusiastic. Wholehearted."

"Stellar," Erika said firmly.

Stuart looked up, face solemn. "The world's starriest stellar," he said; Erika picked up the pigment can and whacked him with it, laughing helplessly.


End file.
